All Right
by Daine
Summary: Beast Boy remembered the day he stopped smiling. Post Aftershock. Beast Boy grieves over Terra's death, and none of his friends can get through to him...except for one. [no pairings]


A/N: Re-written after seeing Aftershock: Part Two. There are no non-canon pairings unless you want to look for them, and there is neither Terra-bashing nor Terra-idolizing. I hope you enjoy it, and please review.

Disclaimer: The Teen Titans do not belong to me.

**All Right**

Beast Boy remembered the exact moment that he stopped smiling.

He remembered running through the smoke and dust towards her, heedless of his friends' shouts, uncaring of the true outcome of the battle. Slade's defeat meant nothing to him in this moment, not if…

"Terra?" His voice had cracked as he stared at her unmoving form. "_Terra_?" Desperately he tried to evoke some sort of response from her, but the stone figure did not answer him. He ran a finger along the curve of her frozen cheek, his face pale and drawn. "No!" he cried, anguished, as he realized that the girl who had captured his heart was gone forever.

Beast Boy could not recall much more of that awful, awful day, the day his smiles ended. His friends' exclamations of surprise, sorrow, and determination washed around him without any comprehension. The instant they arrived home, he went straight to his room and locked himself in, where he could grieve in peace.

The following morning they went to say goodbye to her statue. Beast Boy had thought that nothing could be worse than that first shock of seeing Terra encased in stone, but this had proved him wrong. _Teen Titan – True Friend,_ the plaque read. The bitterness of the words wounded him to the core. She had _not_ been a true friend, not by any stretch of the imagination, nor had they been to her, and now she never could be. In the end, however, she had cared enough to sacrifice herself for the city, for the Titans –

For him.

_"You were the best friend I ever had."_

For the next few days he left his sanctuary only to eat, late at night when no one else could see him. He couldn't bear the thought of eating meals with the Titans, which were sure to be full of awkward silences and sympathetic glances. Or worse – maybe the other Titans were carrying on as usual, untouched and unmoved by Terra's sacrifice. Beast Boy knew it would kill him to see that.

His friends began to get up at odd hours, trying to catch him outside his room. Starfire ambushed him on his way back from the bathroom with a bone-crushing hug. Her plea of "_Friend, please do not grieve alone! We wish to be there for you!_" fell on deaf ears.

Cyborg came next. He bravely knocked on Beast Boy's door and tried to convince him to come out and play video games. "C'mon, BB. We could team up and kick Robin's butt. It's getting boring playing our fearless leader every time." Beast Boy had refused to answer, and eventually Cyborg went away.

Possibly the least helpful visit came from Robin. He convinced Cyborg to hack the computerized lock on Beast Boy's door, and came in with the air of one trying to wash his hands of a difficult problem. "Beast Boy, you can't grieve forever." _Oh, can't I?_ Beast Boy thought mulishly. "Besides, Terra wouldn't have wanted you to."

_How could you know what Terra would have wanted? You didn't even bother to get to know her! _Robin, oblivious to Beast Boy's train of thought, concluded with, "At least she returned to our side before the end. That means something." At this last remark, Beast Boy cracked. He morphed gorilla and threw Robin bodily from the room, roaring in anger. His friends left him alone after that.

After Robin's violation of his hideaway, Beast Boy moved into Terra's room. He spent all day on her bed, staring mindlessly at the ceiling. And that was where Raven found him, curled up as a dog a few days later.

Raven sat on the bed, uncharacteristically close to him. When he refused to acknowledge her, she spoke. "Beast Boy…" He growled at her. "I know it hurts," she continued, undaunted, her voice perfectly even. Her monotone remained unchanged, and she refused to meet his eyes. "Loss is always…hard."

He growled louder and turned to bare his teeth at her. Did she think this was helpful? Raven only stared dispassionately down at him. "Listen to me, Beast Boy; I'm only going to say this once. And if you tell anyone I said it, I will deny it until the moment I kill you."

Despite himself, he was listening. She stared across the room and said, "Terra never understood what friendship and the Titans were. She wanted her friends to make sacrifices for _her_, without making any herself. Maybe she learned better, at the end." Raven paused before continuing. "You're a…really good guy, Beast Boy. You deserve better than to sit alone and mourn for something that didn't really exist. You are strong enough to put this behind you."

Immediately Beast Boy turned human again and exploded at Raven, his face nearly purple with rage. "_That's _your good advice? I should 'put it behind me'?" How _dare _you say those things about her! You don't know _anything_, Raven! You hated her!"

Raven's eyes narrowed and flickered dangerously. "Don't yell at me," she said. "I was trying to help. I shouldn't have bothered."

"I don't need _your_ kind of help! Get out of here!" Beast Boy screamed.

"Fine!" Raven left to a resounding crash of broken glass. Beast Boy spent the remainder of the day alternately raging at Raven and despairing of the wounds she had callously ripped anew.

_"You were the best friend…"_

But her words had stayed with him. Her cold, logical voice had penetrated deeply into his mind, far past Starfire's sympathy, Robin's platitudes, or Cyborg's attempts to make him laugh. He couldn't help but listen to it.

Five days later, he left Terra's room for good. Robin caught him coming out, and for once Beast Boy did not feel the urge to run and hide from anyone else's company. He nodded once to Robin, who looked almost comical in his shock, and closed Terra's door firmly. He would not go in there again.

His re-introduction to daily life at the Tower was strange. The awkwardness he had expected was there, but it was not as pervasive as he had feared. Many times the odd pause was only a moment where he would, under normal circumstances, have cracked a joke. Once Beast Boy recognized that, he stopped feeling so uncomfortable. His friends were waiting patiently for him to recover.

He found himself spending most of his time watching the others, and was strangely comforted by the way their lives continued. He saw signs that they, too, had grieved for Terra, and this gave him an unaccountable measure of peace.

However, Beast Boy still avoided Raven.

Raven's words haunted him, at night while he lay attempting to sleep. Seeing her only made it worse. It still made him angry. How dare she say those things about Terra? Yes, Terra had betrayed them, but hadn't she also defied Slade? In the last moments, when he saw his death coming towards him as he lay trapped beneath her feet, had she not fought Slade with every particle of her being to keep from destroying him? She had been able to break Slade's control, and then she had been able to defeat him. Not even Robin had managed that.

Beast Boy was not stupid. He realized that Terra had been able to defy Slade at any point and chose not to. But she had not believed there was a reason to – had not believed in friendship or love – and it was for that he mourned, that he had never been able to teach her differently, and that now he would never have the chance. If only he had been able to get through to her, if only she had not been so alone for so long…he struggled beneath the terrible weight of his failure.

A week later he felt his lips quirk involuntarily at one of Cyborg's and Robin's arguments. At first it felt strange, to smile after such a horrible thing had happened. It was like learning how to walk again after a debilitating injury – it should have been natural, but it wasn't. For the first time he had an idea of what it must be like to be Raven.

As the weeks passed, the quirk became a grin, then a true smile. It began to feel right again. He was beginning to understand the truth behind Raven's harsh words – that Terra had possessed character flaws that were too deeply ingrained for one boy and a few months of friendship to overcome. That she had not been ready, or perhaps not even capable, for any sort of relationship, and he had built up their friendship and his crush into something more than was actually there. That moving on did not mean he had to forget her. And maybe – maybe –

Beast Boy began to believe that it might not be his fault.

The others noticed the change in him – how could they not? They stopped tiptoeing around him; Robin no longer hesitated to speak to him and Starfire no longer restrained herself from hugging him. One day, Cyborg even slipped enough to say her name in his presence, something that had been strenuously avoided for nearly a month. He relaxed visibly when Beast Boy didn't explode. Starfire was so shocked that she literally froze in midair, and when Beast Boy didn't react she collapsed, falling over Robin and causing him to let out an undignified squawk. The two grappled for a moment, before Robin tripped over the remote and landed flat on his back in an open box of leftover pizza.

Beast Boy felt a smile cross his face, and a gleeful feeling begun to rise within him. His smile grew, and much to the shock of the other Titans, he burst out laughing. As his teammates stared, he laughed harder and harder, a month's worth of pain and despair and loneliness released in this simple moment. It felt like a monumental weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he laughed even as his friends' faces changed from shock to glee, and finally to concern. But that was okay; they didn't understand! He was fine; he was more than fine. Terra's name was just a name. He had felt an echo of pain, but none of his earlier devastation. Raven was right. He was stronger than this! He was strong enough to admit he had loved her and strong enough to let her go. Raven was right and he was strong and everything, everything was glorious!

At last he calmed down, and he turned to meet each of his friends' worried faces. His eyes were more solemn then expected after such mirth, but the haunted look they had contained for so long was gone. He winked at Robin, smiled at Starfire, and gave a cheeky grin to Cyborg, before turning last of all to Raven.

He took a moment just to look at her, from the glow of her eyes beneath her dark hood to the tips of her toes. The smile faded from his face, and he nodded at her. In that moment, surrounded by his friends – his family – he felt…complete. He was not cured, but he was healing.

"Raven…thank you." He conjured up a weak grin. "You were right."

Her eyes widened imperceptibly. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said coolly.

"I know," he said, and this time managed a real smile. There was no need to explain, and besides, he had little doubt that she had meant her threat from three weeks ago. He left her spluttering for a response and turned to Cyborg. "So, Tin Man, have you gone soft in my absence?"

Cyborg blinked in shock and confusion, but he quickly recovered. "You wish," he sneered. "I'm gonna kick your little monkey behind!"

Taking his cue for the first time in weeks, Beast Boy transformed into a spider monkey and chattered mockingly at Cyborg before racing for the Gamestation. Cyborg followed, with Starfire and Robin close behind.

The controller settled familiarly into his grip, and he smirked over at his large friend. He could sense Raven behind them and knew that she had not, for once, abandoned them for the company of her mirror. The thought filled him with warmth. He had his friends and his newfound strength, and all that mattered right now was proving that his gaming skills hadn't suffered in the last month. How could he not be happy?

_"The best friend…the best friend…"_ He smiled as her last words echoed through his mind. At last, he could remember and not grieve.

_Yes, _he thought as the familiar theme music started up. _I'm going to be all right._


End file.
